Contacts:
In Cairo: Nehal El Kouesny (20-2) 574-1670/71
e-mail: nelkouesney@worldbank.org Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs, cosponsored by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, finds that reforms, while often simple, can create many new jobs. “Jobs are a priority for every country, and especially the poorest countries. Doing more to improve regulation and help entrepreneurs is key to creating more jobs--and more growth,” said Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank Group. September 2006 - For Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, the challenge of creating jobs for a relatively large youth population is overwhelming. Enhancing the investment climate in the region is critical to finding solutions in the short term. The annual report, which for the first time provides a global ranking of 155 nations on key business regulations and reforms, finds that Middle Eastern and North African nations impose many regulatory obstacles on entrepreneurs and have been the second-slowest reformers over the past year, after Sub- Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, every country in Eastern Europe improved at least one aspect of the business environment, and countries such as Serbia and Montenegro and Georgia topped the global rankings for most reforms enacted. Overall, European nations were the most active in enacting reforms while African and Middle Eastern nations with high youth unemployment rates continue to thwart small and medium businesses with heavy legal burdens and piecemeal reforms, according to the global survey. This year, the Regional Profile of the Report was launched in Cairo in an event that brought together World Bank senior management representatives, senior government officials, representatives of the private sector and the media as well as economic experts in the region. From the Bank side, the launch was attended by Dr. Michael Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Private Sector Development and IFC Chief Economist and Emmanuel Mbi, Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti. “The new Country Assistance Strategy for Egypt expresses investment climate as a priority for the Bank’s support. Egypt is indeed a leading example for reforms across the region and we are delighted to be able to contribute to this important phase of its economic and social development,” said Mr. Mbi in his welcoming remarks. In his presentation of the report, Dr. Klein explained that: “ While a large unfinished agenda for research remains into what regulation constitutes binding constraints, what package of reforms are most effective and how this is shaped by country context, the Doing Business indicators provide a new empirical dataset that may improve understanding of these issues”. Representing the Government of Egypt in the launching event was Dr. Mahmoud Moheieldin, Minister of Investment chaired who acknowledged the report and reiterated the government’s commitment to fighting corruption. “For Egypt, it is very important to be able to assess our reform progress and equally important to learn from other countries experiences through the global survey findings. Our regional and global competitiveness firmly relies on the pace of the reform agenda and our commitment to its implementation and fighting corruption,” he said. Also attending was H.E. Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry who described the report as an important tool for assessing reform progress. “Challenges to reform include human resources development, access to land and credit all of which are elements of the reform agenda that the government is currently implementing,” he commented. “The ease of doing business should not undermine the challenge of identifying the right business opportunity and in Egypt his is currently a major challenge that we are addressing,” he further added. Egypt ranked sixth on the list of top 12 reformers in the past year which also included in order: Serbia and Montenegro, Georgia, Vietnam, Slovakia, Germany, Finland, Romania, Latvia, Pakistan, Rwanda, and the Netherlands. “Recent reforms in Egypt represent an important benchmark toward making the investment climate more business friendly,” said Michael Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Private Sector Development and IFC Chief Economist. The Doing Business 2006 report tracks a set of regulatory indicators related to business startup, operation, trade, payment of taxes, and closure by measuring the time and cost associated with various government requirements. The new indicators in this year’s report further reinforce the overwhelming need for reform, especially in poor countries. The report finds that poor countries levy the highest business taxes in the world. These high taxes create incentives to evade, driving many firms into the underground economy, and do not translate to higher revenues. Similarly, the analysis shows that reforming the administrative costs of trading can remove significant obstacles to exporting and importing. Egypt’s ranking among top reformers was earned as a result of a broad economic and political reform agenda that was launched in July 2004 including reforms in the company registry, the credit registry, the property registry, and the customs office. In addition, Egypt was recognized as the world’s top reformer of customs due to “simplification procedures” which resulted in establishing a single window for trade documentation and merging 26 approvals into 5. “We are pleased by what we have achieved so far but we also realize that we have a long way to go to eliminate obstacles to investment,” commented Dr. Zeyad Bahaa El Din, Chairman of the General Authority for Investment. For further information on the Doing Business Report series, please refer to: www.doingbusiness.org |
RSS